Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Russia’s
Right Turn

Moscow
has reclaimed its 19th-century conservative role

William S. Lind

An unfortunate
legacy of the Cold War is the negative attitude some American conservatives yet
harbor toward Russia. Conditioned for decades to see Russia and the Soviet
Union as synonymous, they still view post-communist Russia as a threat. They
forget that Tsarist Russia was the most conservative great power, a bastion of
Christian monarchy loathed by revolutionaries, Jacobins, and democrats. Joseph
de Maistre was not alone among 19th-century conservatives in finding refuge and
hope in Russia.

Under President
Vladimir Putin, Russia is emerging once more as the leading conservative power.
As we witnessed in Russia’s rescue of President Obama from the corner into
which he had painted himself on Syria, the Kremlin is today, as the New York
Times reports, “Establishing Russia’s role in world affairs not based on the
dated Cold War paradigm but rather on its different outlook, which favors state
sovereignty and status quo stability over the spread of Western-style
democracy.”

In his own Times
op-ed on Syria, Putin wrote, “It is alarming that military intervention in
internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the United
States. Is it in America’s long-term interest? I doubt it.” Sen. Robert A. Taft
and Russell Kirk also doubted it.

Moscow appears
to understand better than Washington that the driving foreign-policy
requirement of the 21st century is the preservation of the state in the face of
Fourth Generation war waged by non-state entities, such as those fighting on
the rebels’ side in Syria. Russia has rightly upbraided Washington for
destroying states, including Iraq and Libya.

When Putin came
to power following the chaotic Yeltsin years, there was a real possibility the
Russian state itself would disintegrate. Putin’s greatest achievement, and the
reason for his popularity within the country, is that he saved and strengthened
the Russian state instead. Blinded by their worship of the clay god
“Democracy,” Washington elites cannot perceive the importance of what Putin
did, but conservatives should. Russia can be an effective ally against Fourth
Generation entities, and conservatives prefer states to stateless anarchy.
Russia’s new-old conservatism is evident not only in its foreign policy but at
home as well. In September the Financial Times reported:

Vladimir Putin
called on Russians to strengthen a new national identity based on conservative
and traditional values such as the Orthodox church yesterday, warning that the
west was facing a moral crisis. … Mr. Putin said Russia should avoid the
example of European countries that were ‘going away from their roots’ by
legalizing gay marriage and excessive ‘political correctness.’

“People in many
European countries are ashamed and are afraid of talking about their religious
convictions,” Putin is quoted as saying, with religious holidays “being taken
away or called something else, shamefully hiding the essence of the holiday.”

“We need to
respect the rights of minorities to be different,” he added, “but the rights of
the majority should not be in question.” American conservatives can only dream
of an American president saying such things. Should we not cheer a Russian
president who dares to defy “political correctness?”

The world has
turned upside down. America, condemning and even attacking other countries to
push “democracy” and Jacobinical definitions of human rights, is becoming the
leader of the international Left. Russia is reasserting her historic role as
leader of the international Right. This is a reversal of historic importance.
American foreign policy should be based on America’s interests, not on affinity
for any foreign power. But putting America first does not require being hostile
to Russia or anyone else. On the contrary: American conservatives should
welcome the resurgence of a conservative Russia.

William S. Lind is director of the American
Conservative Center for Public Transportation.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Sochi
and The Left’s Human Rights Hypocrisy

Don Feder

There should be
an event at the Sochi Olympics where advocates posing as journalists, celebrity
nitwits and politicians can compete to see who can wail the loudest and longest
about the supposed horror of Russia's dreaded anti-gay law, while Pussy Riot
plays in the background. Extra points will be awarded for absurd and offensive
analogies to the Holocaust.

In a February 7
commentary in USA Today, four Congressmen took a break from raising the
national-debt limit to discuss their grave concern. "We are especially
disturbed by the discriminatory practices in the Russian Federation regarding
gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons." They vaguely allude to the
nation's anti-propaganda law, which discourages promoting "non-traditional
sexual relations," without explaining that it concerns attempts to
indoctrinate children.

In an open
letter to the British newspaper The Guardian, more than 200 "prominent
international authors" lament the Russian law. "The chokehold that
the Russian Federation has placed on freedom of expression is deeply worrying
and needs to be addressed in order to bring about a healthy democracy in
Russia," sniffs Salman Rushdie.

I thought when
the duly elected representatives of the people passed a law by a vote of 436 to
0 (with one abstention) that was democracy in action. But, apparently, it's
only democratic if Rushdie and his prominent international friends approve of
the result.

And what would
leftist hysteria be without Holocaust comparisons. "These new anti-gay
laws are disturbingly similar to the anti-Semitic Nuremberg laws Hitler passed
before the 1936 Olympics," raves CNN contributor LZ Granderson. The
similarity exists only in LZ's fevered imagination.

In The Daily
Mail, another Brit periodical, gay writer Andrew Pierce calls actor Stephen
Fry's fondness for genocide analogies here "deranged in its lack of
proportionality." Where are the death camps? Pierce asks. "Even more
shamefully, Fry is downgrading the significance of the Holocaust by comparing
it with a ban on gay pride marches."

During the
communist-era, liberals told us we had to be understanding of Soviet
eccentricities – like gulags. Now that Russia isn't red any more, relativism is
out. Corporate America, which pushed East-West trade and détente in the 1980s,
is now lecturing the Kremlin on human rights.

Syrian
Christians are being slaughtered with abandon. A third of the population has
been exiled. But that pales compared to a ban on men in bikini briefs grinding
their way through the streets of Moscow. The Media Research Center notes that
while NBC has been all over the Russian child-protection law, the network has
yet to report on the plight of Syrian Christians.

A word about
that law, which wasn't initiated by Putin and passed the State Duma without a
single dissenting vote: It does not outlaw homosexuality. Dozens of gay clubs
operate openly in Moscow. The only prohibition is publicly promoting homosexuality
to minors.

For example, two
homosexuals are not allowed to stand outside an elementary school with a banner
that says: "Hey kids, sodomy is swell – and you should try it!" Each
violation by an individual is punishable by a fine that's the equivalent of
$50.00. Violations of the Nuremberg laws, which had nothing to do with Jewish
parades in Berlin, were punished by imprisonment and hard labor.

Why would
Russia, with a declining population, be concerned about promoting these
"non-traditional lifestyles" to children? Might it have something to
do with the British medical journal The Lancet's report that a male homosexual
is 18 times more likely to contract HIV than a heterosexual – or those
notorious homophobes at the Centers for Disease Control disclosing that in
2010, men who have sex with men (as they delicately put it) accounted for 63%
of new HIV infections in the U.S.?

"We must
all raise our voices against attacks on lesbian, gay, bisexual , transgender or
intersex people." says UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. "We must all
oppose the arrests, imprisonments and discriminatory restrictions they
face." Must we?

At the United
Nations and throughout the West, discriminatory restrictions on traditional
believers who object, however mildly, to non-traditional life-styles are the
order of the day.

The left
believes in popular sovereignty – within narrowly defined limits. In the United
States, between 1998 and 2012, the voters of 32 states passed constitutional
bans on same-sex marriage. This represents 50 million votes for maintaining the
integrity of the institution on which civilization depends. On average, the
referenda passed by two-to-one majorities.

Despite that
overwhelming expression of popular sentiment, state and federal courts (SCOTUS
included) have been working overtime to negate the will of the people. When
he's through remaking Russia, perhaps Rushdie will help to "bring about a
healthy democracy" in America.

Christians who
refuse to participate in a travesty that violates their deeply held beliefs are
pulverized by judges and bureaucrats drunk on the heady elixir of sexual
rights.

The New Mexico
Supreme Court fined a photographer $6,638 for declining to photograph a lesbian
"commitment ceremony." For refusing to host a gay
"wedding," the Vermont Human Rights Commission – which bears a
striking resemblance to a People's Revolutionary Tribunal – fined the
Wildflower Inn $10,000 and required its owners to place $20,000 in a charitable
trust for lesbians. The Washington State Attorney General is pursuing a florist
for a similar offense.

When did
engaging in non-traditional sexual relations become a human right? Where is the
sodomy clause in the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution or U.N.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

The 1948 UN
declaration calls the family (defined as mother, father and children) "the
natural and fundamental group of society, and (as such) entitled to protection
by society and the state." Fat chance, when family rights conflict with
the imperative to advance the left's sexual agenda.

In 2005,
Lexington, Massachusetts father David Parker was arrested and led away in
handcuffs when he refused to leave school grounds to protest his 6-year-old
son's initiation into the regime of tolerance by being forced to read
"Who's In A Family?" ("Heather Has A Bisexual Mommy and A
Transgendered Daddy"). A federal judge dismissed Parker's civil rights
suit, ruling that under the state's new gay marriage law, schools have a
positive duty to indoctrinate students and a right to keep parents in the dark.

Late last year,
the U.S. Senate passed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act which extends
"sexual orientation" and "gender identity" rights to the
workplace. If ENDA is enacted, a male employee will have a legal right to wear
a dress to work. Objecting to same will be a civil rights violation punishable
by heavy fines.

California's
bizarre-beyond-belief bathroom bill is on hold, pending the outcome of a
referendum triggered by opponents collecting 619,000 signatures on a repeal
petition. The law allows boys who "feel like girls" to use the
bathrooms and changing rooms, and shower with, those who not only feel like
girls but in fact are girls. And Putin would deny such progress to his people?
For shame, I say!

Both California
and New Jersey now have bans on reparative therapy. Under penalty of law,
parents are forbidden to take their children to a counselor for unwanted
same-sex attraction. State Sen. Ted Lieu, the law's sponsor, admitted it was
intended as an "attack on parental rights… because we don't want to let
parents harm their children."

Chai Feldblum,
who Obama placed on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, tells us that when
religious beliefs conflict with the rights of sexual minorities, she would have
"a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should
win."

Here's another
gem from Comrade Chai – whose thinking reflects the reigning cultural ethos:
"Just as we do not tolerate private religious beliefs that adversely
affect African-Americans in the commercial arena, even if such beliefs are
based on religious views, we should similarly not tolerate private beliefs
about sexual orientation and gender identity that adversely affect LGBT
people," says the former law professor. Russia's child-protection law is
mild compared to this type of thought-control.

In a recent
address, Putin observed: "Many Euro-Atlantic countries have moved away from
their roots, including Christian values." The Russian President
admonished, "Policies are being pursued that place on the same level a
multi-child family and a same-sex partnership, a faith in God and a belief in
Satan. This is the path to degradation." Putin could never make it in U.S.
politics, being too grounded in reality.

Last week, Ban's
boys at the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child ordered the Catholic
Church "to review its position on abortion, which places obvious risks on
the life and health of pregnant girls" – unlike abortion, which has a salutary
effect on 16-year-olds.

The committee
also urged the Vatican to re-think its opposition to faux marriage, which
"fails to recognize the diversity of family settings," and inevitably
leads to "stigmatization of and violence against… adolescents and children
raised by same sex couples."

But what are the
deeply held beliefs of 1.2 billion people, and a 2,000-year-old institution,
against the imperative of sexual-orientation/gender-identity
"equality," opposition to which is, after all, a lot like cattle cars
and gas chambers.

As my friend and
Russian pro-family leader Alexey Komov likes to say: "Under Reagan,
America helped to save us from communism. We'd like to return the favor."